The always interesting Ralph Ellis has a theory about our most venerable white epic, Gilgamesh. He also has a new book out called Eden in Egypt which sounds good too. Ellis can be a stimulating guide to history's more curious anomalies.

Gilgamesh is the ancient Sumerian epic, written some 4,000 years ago and rediscovered only in the nineteenth century. It is a story that has echoes of the biblical Old Testament, with its graphic details of the flood and the formation of mankind from the dust of the earth. The bulk of the story is devoted to the king of Sumer known as Gilgamesh and his epic quest into the mystical forests of cedar where he performs many heroic deeds. The epic of Gilgamesh is thought to be the earliest heroic story ever written in the world, but the historians may be up to 600 years adrift in this calculation, as their chronology is founded on a misinterpretation of what the story is really about. Historians have generally translated the tale as being a literal epic of this Sumerian king making his mark on the world, but I think that they may be in error here.

I have been working on the theory that the bulk of the biblical Old Testament is, in fact, a story of the constellations. It is an epic tale of a battle between Taurus and Aries - between the biblical patriarchs, (who were known as shepherds - Arians) and the Apis Bull worshippers (Taureans) that so plagued Moses. It is my belief that the Gilgamesh epic is essentially the same as the Bible, it describes a battle between the stellar constellations of Taurus and Aries. The first clue to this cosmic clash is that Gilgamesh's companion, Enkidu, is described as being a meteor:

This star of heaven which descended like a meteor from the sky;
which you tried to lift, but found too heavy ... This is the
strong comrade, the one who brings help to his friend in need.

The texts go on to describe the Enkidu in great detail. The allusion is quite obvious: Enkidu is a stellar object. Gilgamesh himself, in turn, is described as arming himself for the coming quest and battle in the following fashion:

Gilgamesh took the axe, he slung the quiver from his shoulder,
and the bow of Anshan, and buckled the sword to his belt;
and so they were armed and ready for the journey.

In stellar terms, the allusion is again quite plain: the axe in the right hand, the bow in the left hand, the sword hanging from his belt - Gilgamesh is simply the Sumerian term for the constellation of Orion. Take a look at Orion, this constellation has all the attributes ascribed to Gilgamesh. This is an epic of the skies, an impending battle of the constellations and the greatest of all the constellations, Orion, is arming himself to do battle with the cosmos. But Gilgamesh (Orion) does not know the way, so it is only fitting that he needs Enkidu (the meteor) to lead him:

Let Enkidu lead the way, he knows the road to the forest
[of stars] ... the mountain of cedars, the dwelling place of
the gods.

The purpose of Gilgamesh's (Orion's) quest is to slay the constellation of Taurus the Bull and see in the era of the new constellation of Aries the Ram......<snip> (continued at link)...

'The Epic of Gilgamesh is alive and wriggling. You might as well try and catch hold of an eel in the water as imagine you can get hold of the Epic.' [1]

So starts Robert Temple's attempt to restore the oldest story in the world. Set in what is now Iraq, the Epic of Gilgamesh has its origin in the Sumerian era c.3,000 BCE. What has come down to us are various clay tablet fragments written around 1,800-1,600 BCE onwards in the Akkadian cuniform script, from which academics argumentatively put together a more-or-less coherent whole. How far back the tales stretch into oral tradition we can only speculate, but the enormities of time are overwhelming. Undoubtedly, this is the world's oldest surviving story.

Arguably it is the world's best selling story, too, as the Epic remained in circulation for at least 1,500 years. Judging from the numbers of fragments of tablets in different places, it seems to have been the standard text for training pupils in the Akkadian scriptoria. Gilgamesh's saga develops into those of Hecules or even Odysseus in Classical Greece. Aspects of Plato's writings can also be seen to have been seeded by the Sumerian saga. Furthermore, in the Gilgamesh legends is the story of a Deluge and a carefully constructed cubic ark of sacred measurements - the prototype of the Biblical tale, although the cuniform tablets predate the biblical tale by at least a millenia and a half.

While the Gilgamesh tale still unfolds as a cracking yarn, we would be better seeing the fragments of baked clay as originally being the aide memoirs of actors. This epic was drama - undoubtedly sacred drama - rather as the earliest Greek theatre was also a dramatised ritual. Indeed, it is reasonable to suppose that there was an unbroken tradition between the performances of the Epic and the Bacchae.

Gilgamesh - the name means 'Gilga the hero' - seems to have been a historical king and priest of Urek, although direct confirmation is lacking. Yet, at the same time, he is purely mythical. One text states 'Gilgamesh is Nergal, who resides in the underworld.' Likewise, Hercules was also depicted as Nergal. Gilgamesh also gets woven into the Sumerian beliefs which held that their civilisation was founded by beings that were half fish and half men. They, too, were a persistent part of middle eastern myth and were still featured in literature 2,000 years after the Gilgamesh tales were first recorded....

Knowing of this story, and others, how can you see christianity as anything but men cashing in on the general public's ignorance? Greedy men, not altruistic ones.
To find out if the story of Gilgamesh has any meaning to man today, lemmings must first get past christianity. In this respect, I think the church is now more of an anchor than a useful tool.

__________________
KILL YOUR TV! Or at least stop taking it more seriously than a goldfish.